Part Three
Chapter 23
LUHVLUHV
Monwyrt struggled to overcome his nausea.
Traeppedelferes needed something solid underfoot, he reflected. Stone. Hard, cool, and above all, motionless. He forced himself to look out on the surface of the river again. It looked benign enough: smooth, hardly a ripple marking its laminated flow; a wide, calm expanse of liquid repose. There was not a trace of a breeze this morning, he noted with irritation. He wiped anxiety-induced perspiration from his face, without pausing to consider that the lack of wind was the reason for the unusual placidity of the river just then. He absently stared across the water, almost daring to believe that his stomachs would settle. It seemed for an instant, in his reverie, that the river was like the expansive floor of some great hall, or corridor rather, that he could simply run on as far as he would, and save himself the torture of these, these boats. He put his hand out to touch the water.
His dream was shattered immediately. His fingers sent out rings of motion as they broke the surface, and the heavy sharbohn vaisoh rocked ever so lightly when he leaned to the side. His insides lunged, but he managed to master the impulse momentarily. But he jerked his hand back from the water with unalloyed alarm when a truhthalig, perhaps attracted by the ripples, suddenly leaped out of the water without warning right under his very nose, splashing his astonished face with a cool shower of droplets.
The truhthalig's body was completely free of the river for a flashing instant and Monwyrt, despite his surprise and inner turmoil, could see it with vivid clarity. He saw that its smooth silver skin was actually a broken glittering network of many-colored gems, sparking wet in the morning sunlight, alive with an impossible cold fire. The truhthalig's eyes were black and unseeing, he thought - the eyes of the dead. Its mouth was flung wide open, without drawing breath, and its diaphenous multi-hued tail vainly slapped the air with agitated frustration as it followed its shard-scattering arc back towards its own dark realm. Then, with an explosion of light, it disappeared into the river again, as if by goety. Monwyrt's mouth hung open in wonder. The sudden image validated all the ancient lore of the Traeppedelferes concerning the mysterious truhthalig, and he, in spite of his weakness, felt inspired with the reverence of faith.
Nuzhunpa and Zholybet had been inspired by the sight of the sahvahn, too. "Catch it!" Zholybet cried excitedly, suddenly clambering back to Monwyrt. She pouted a little when she saw she was too late. "Why didn't you even try?" she scolded him.
Nuzhunpa was more understanding, if for the wrong reason. "Perhaps he is still too weak, Zholy. I'm sure he wasn't ready for it."
Zholybet's movement through the vaisoh unfortunately resulted in another confrontation between Monwyrt and his stomachs. He managed to ask her a question, though, with his chin pressed against his chest. "Why did you want to catch the sahvahn?"
The two Laizuvrians looked at each other, puzzled.
"It was a big one," Nuzhunpa commented.
"Dacoar," Zholybet agreed, "it would have been enough for all three of us."
Monwyrt still did not understand. "What do you mean?"
Zholybet looked at him in amusement. "To eat, of course!"
Monwyrt immediately leaned over the farg.
Ahead, in the lead sharbohn vaisoh, Rokay felt the barge slowing at the same time he heard the keel grind into the sand bar. He deftly shifted his weight and pushed his pairsh into the sand, deflecting the course of the vaisoh away from the obstruction. It was a natural movement for him, and for all the Laizuvrians. The Luhvluhv was their highway and well-spring, providing food and drink; their bath, physical and spiritual; and their playground, too. The whole race lived their lives out in and on the river, and had done so back into the distant past, longer than lore itself recounted. Even Paisohnprahn had no legends to relate of the time before they lived on the river, if indeed such a time had ever existed. It was much more comforting to believe, as the shainus now instructed their children, that the Laizuvrians and the Luhvluhv were as one unit, to co-exist forever as they had forever done.
But nothing could have been further from Rokay's mind than this metaphysical collaboration of um and water. He and Anyogatoh were airing and sharing a common grievance: the presence of the Zhonoy in their party. Words were becoming bitter.
"Fazh!" Anyogatoh spat. "At least Nuzhunpa has the decency to keep the slow out of sight upstream."
Rokay looked at her wickedly. "Which slow?" he laughed, a malicious gleam in his eye.
Anyogatoh scolded him, but laughed along all the same. "Don't you feel sorry for poor Zholybet?" she asked. But her question, so seemingly sympathetic, was delivered in a voice entirely devoid of compassion.
"Oh, dacoar, I do," Rokay mocked, "and for the Zhonoy, too." They both laughed again.
"I feel sorry for old Nuzhunpa, that's who I hurt for," she said earnestly. "And, well, I hurt for Zholybet, too. She can't help it if she's so unpopular."
Rokay smiled at this charitable description. "Ugly," he would have said, he thought to himself. "Monstrous. Slow." He thought again, as he had heard others at the Ealdlazay Fair remark, that Zholybet bore an uncanny resemblance to some of the Zhonoy numpas. "Dacoar," he said aloud, "I feel sorry for Nuzhunpa, too. He is a good um, a great um, even. It is not fair that he should be burdened with a daughter who can never be betrothed."
"It doesn't seem to trouble her, though," Anyogatoh continued on her line of thought. "She is the most cheerful and considerate numpa I know. She is always willing to help at a moment's notice."
"And always able to, too," added Rokay, cuttingly. "She has the back and shoulders of two ums."
Anyogatoh quieted him. "You sound jealous!" she said, and then went on. "I often wonder how she seems to be so content with her place."
"Or with her face."
"That's enough, Rokay! We don't need to be dragging poor Zholybet down in the fazh with the Zhonoy!"
Rokay was willing to concede that point. "We should have left it out in the shoz where we found it," he said with disgust.
"And let the children play around it when they came? That's no good."
"I still don't trust it. What was it doing out in the plain, anyway? And with that beckyrev - I still don't get that, either. I guess that's why Nuzhunpa is bringing it along, though. At least that's what he said. He wants to let Paisohnprahn talk to it." Rokay pushed off with his pairsh again.
They were both silent a while, but then Anyogatoh suddenly laughed to herself. "What's so funny?" Rokay asked.
"I shouldn't say, after scolding you for talking about Zholybet," she admitted with a smile. "I just had a sahnsaervoh thought, that's all."
"You ought to give me a chance to scold you back, and get even," Rokay parried. "What's this sahnsaervoh thought?"
Anyogatoh looked up at him and debated with herself a few moments, then burst out laughing again. "Oh, all right," she said, "I'll tell you. But I'm ashamed of myself for even thinking of it."
"You whet my curiosity. What is it?"
"I just thought of what might be a reason why Nuzhunpa is bringing the Zhonoy to Todymody."
"What's that?"
She looked embarassed to give voice to such a cruel and vulgar thought, but she laughed as she said it. "To betroth to Zholybet!"
Those in the vaisohs just upstream of the leaders looked up to see Rokay fall into the river with a great splash, out of control with laughter.
The airless morning gave way to a particularly stifling afternoon, especially so considering the time of the season. The sun glared mercilessly off the planed surface of the river to roast them doubly. By mid-day they had drifted beyond the furthest reaches of the plains fire, and the tall shoam again lined both banks of the Luhvluhv with the walls of their stalks, rendering the impression of closeness even more oppressive.
Monwyrt lay in the vaisoh and panted. While the one bank had continued burned and barren, he had entertained the idea of putting ashore and running alongside the vaisohs. As weak as he still was, he was sure he could keep up with the drifting barges. But when the shoam reappeared, he knew he would not have the strength to fight through it, and he resigned himself to riding it out in the vaisohs. The stillness of the air was entirely new to him; it seemed as if his very breath hung in threatening anticipation in front of his mouth, daring him to breathe again.
"Don't you hear me?" Zholybet was saying something.
"Dacoar, I hear," he answered, then added somewhat awkwardly, "What did you say?"
"If you heard - oh, never mind. I said you have to eat something. Here, try this."
Images of the truhthalig sprang into his mind as he suspiciously asked her, "what is it?" He cautiously sniffed at the stiff spongy stuff. It smelled a little like coecil.
"I know Zhonoys eat that," Zholybet assured him. "It's made from blaorzh. It's called pahnbatohn."
"It is coecil," Monwyrt thought with relief, and he bit into it gratefully. It was delicious. He devoured every last crumb almost without stopping to breathe. This was not ordinary coecil, this was something wonderful! He asked for and received another of the thin loaves, and attacked it with a ferocity which made Zholybet step back in doubt.
"Monwyrt seems to have regained an appetite," Nuzhunpa noted.
Monwyrt heartily agreed. "This is great coecil!" he praised. "I haven't tasted anything this good since, well since..." He suddenly remembered the beckyrev, and stopped chewing. "What's in this?" he asked, spitting crumbs.
"It's just pahnbatohn," Zholybet expressed matter-of-factly. "Like I said, the Zhonoys make it, too." She couldn't imagine why Monwyrt was making such a fuss over it.
"It tastes different. It's not the same," Monwyrt said.
"Perhaps your folk make it with, er, different ingredients," ventured Nuzhunpa, who was not sure of the complaint, either.
Monwyrt questioned them narrowly. "Is there beckyrev in it?"
"Fo! Of course not."
"Truhthalig? I mean, sahvahn? Is there sahvahn in it?"
Zholybet made a funny face. "Fo, why would there be?"
Monwyrt frowned. Something was different about it, he grumbled to himself. Then he brightened a little. "Whatever it was, though," he thought, "it surely tastes good!" And, deciding to follow up on this line of reasoning, he quickly finished off the second loaf.
"He does know something about beckyrev!" thought Zholybet.
"Why does he seem so worried about eating sahvahn?" Nuzhunpa wondered silently.
Monwyrt leaned far over the farg again, this time not to be sick, but to fill his water-skin, which Zholybet had thoughtfully stowed in the vaisoh along with his few other things (minus, however, the beckyrev). He was in the process of doing this when they heard a slight grating sound, and Nuzhunpa, who was at the bow with the pairsh, suddenly rocked the vaisoh and pushed off with a jerk.
Monwyrt found himself completely immersed in water for the first time in his memory, and for only the second time in his life, before he knew what had happened.
His first reaction was to suck in a great amount of water, which he succeeded in doing, to his immediate dismay. After that, his thinking was somewhat cloudy, and he proceeded to create the greatest tangle of arms, legs, and water possible, crying out for help all the while, only to take in more water every time he opened his mouth. He was understandably desperate, striving vainly to find the surface of the river, lungs bursting fire, feeling himself tire and weaken by the moment.
The Laizuvrians watched with amusement, at first, forgetting that the Zhonoys did not swim. Monwyrt did indeed put on a comical display, they thought. It was a pity that the other Laizuvrians were too far ahead to see it. Monwyrt might have won some friends by his jest.
It soon dawned on Nuzhunpa, however, that perhaps this was not a jest, particularly when Monwyrt's frantic splashing seemed to become less vigorous. He hobbled to the back of the vaisoh, stuck one hand into the water, succeeded in finding what he groped for, and unceremoniously pulled Monwyrt's head out of the water by his hair.
"Help!" he spluttered, eyes closed, unaware that he was being helped.
"Monwyrt!" Nuzhunpa tried to get his attention.
"Help!" Monwyrt cried hysterically.
"Monwyrt! Monwyrt, put your feet down!"
"Help!"
"Put your feet down!"
"He - what?"
"Put your feet down! Put them down!"
"In the water?" Monwyrt howled in disbelief. "Get me out!"
"Dacoar, put your feet down in the water. Get control of yourself. Didn't you hear us hit bottom? It can't be very deep, even way back here, so put your feet down!" Nuzhunpa was losing his patience.
Monwyrt tried it. Clutching Nuzhunpa's arm, whose hand still held onto his hair, he cautiously lowered his feet. Not far below his rear end, they struck the sand bar. Sheepishly, he stood - the water was little more than waist-deep! It required very little help from Nuzhunpa for him to climb back into the vaisoh. A moment ago he thought he would die drowning. Now he felt like he would die from embarassment.
Nuzhunpa and Zholybet did not spare him. But at the end of a long and tiring stream of laughter from them, Zholybet promised, "When you want, Monwyrt, I will teach you how to swim. Then you will not drown in five hands of water!"
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Monwyrt, to his own amazement and great relief, found that his queasiness lessened the longer he stayed on the river. Nuzhunpa told him he was lucky that the day was so calm; windy days could be turbulent, even on the slow and steady Luhvluhv. He ate more of the wonderful pahnbatohn, and toward the middle of the afternoon actually became comfortable enough to fall asleep a while in the warm sun. The ribs and stays of the vaisoh bit into his arms and back, but he told himself it really wasn't any worse than the rocky hillsides he had spent many a night on in the forest.
Toward evening, they ate once more. Then Nuzhunpa called up to the next vaisoh that it was time they tied up for the night, and the message was passed up the river to Rokay and Anyogatoh vaisoh by vaisoh. Monwyrt was glad: he was ready to get out of the boat and roll up on shore in his skin for the night, and he mentioned this to Zholybet. "You want to go ashore at night?" she asked him, incredulous.
Nuzhunpa shook his head. "You don't really want to do that, Monwyrt."
"I don't?" said Monwyrt, unconvinced. "Why don't I?"
Nuzhunpa looked up at the dimming sky. "You will hear, soon," he answered mysteriously. Monwyrt grumbled to himself as they tied the vaisohs end to end, and they all prepared for sleep.
When the light failed, though, Monwyrt did hear what Nuzhunpa was talking about. The sound of it made his flesh creep; he recognized it at once, and he was actually glad to be drifting out on the river instead of lying in the shoam. "Snick! snick! snick! snick!" He thought with disgust of his ruined thriddahype strips.
From his berth in the dark Nuzhunpa said, "Do you hear now, Monwyrt?"
"Dacoar. Tiny clickers. Revolting little things. You were right: it's better to sleep in the vaisohs."
"Orvays. If they survive the dry season, which luckily many of them do not, they mature into malwozzohs, and I don't need to explain them to you."
Monwyrt shuddered. Indeed not! Flotasaecs had always been spoken of as something of a joke amongst the Traeppedelferes; certainly as nothing to be taken seriously, at any rate. He wondered now how many of his folk had even seen one. Not many, he thought.
Mooring together to keep from drifting too far apart in the night, while allowing the party to continue down the current (unless stopped by a sand bar), the Laizuvrians were brought close enough together to speak to those on the other vaisohs. Runahr, overhearing Nuzhunpa's words to Monwyrt, spoke up with a question which had occurred to many of them.
"Monwyrt Zhonoy," he began, formally, "tell us of the terrible malwozzoh attack. I mean, if you are up to it."
Rokay snickered. "If he is ever up to it!" he thought. Rokay was prepared to discount as an outright lie anything the Zhonoy said.
Monwyrt smiled quietly to himself. Runahr's request had reminded him of growing up as a cild and old Fearthabraegen's evening tales in the morwetraeppe's cabin. Now, he was to tell, not cilds, but Mocwalwians the story of the Terrible Malwozzoh Attack.
He began with his first night on the plain, the first time he heard the orvays. His audience shuddered appreciatively at his descriptions of the night noises, the strange scents, the cool air. Nuzhunpa was particularly interested in his accounts of the sources of the river: how many streams had he crossed, and where? They nodded with understanding as he described how his food had been ruined, although they didn't seem to understand exactly what that food was, and seemed to be afraid to ask. They were genuinely concerned at his subsequent hunger, and hung on every word when he got to the actual attack itself. They all became uneasy, out there under the dark, open sky, when Monwyrt started telling about the flying and crawling malwozzohs. They blanched when he described the revolting odor they exuded when he struck them, and the sickening sound it made when he peeled them off of his back and legs. Not even Rokay could believe that he was making this up; it was too horrible not to be true. They wanted to cheer when he told of how the dreadful beasts exploded into so many balls of flame when the fire reached them, and they ached for him when he told how, starving, he had eaten the beckyrevs. He remembered running afterwards, and he related that to them; the joy of it, and the sense of freedom it gave; but they could not rightly understand what he meant by it. He decided not to try to describe the terrible dreams he had had.
They were all quiet for a long time after he finished. None of them had ever gone through anything so horrible as that one day had been for him, and many of them engendered a new respect for the Zhonoy.
Rokay, however, was troubled.
"You killed Opumohn!" he suddenly accused, scarcely concealing the emotion in his voice.
"I never saw Opumohn!" Monwyrt said, startled. "What do you mean?"
"You set the fire! You almost burned down our camp, almost burned up our blaorzh vaisohs! You did it!"
"He didn't even know we were there!" Zholybet defended him, to the surprise of the others.
"Are you sure of that, Zholybet?" retorted Rokay. "Why? Did he say that?"
"It's true!" said Monwyrt. "I only lit the fire to save myself from the flotasaecs, the malwozzohs. She's right - I had no knowledge of your camp. I'd never been to the Bazaar - did any of you recognize me?"
"No," admitted Rokay, "but that doesn't mean anything. The Zhonoys all look the same, anyway. Even the numpas!"
"That's enough, Rokay!" Nuzhunpa cut in. "Runahr wanted to hear Monwyrt's story, and he told it. This is not the time or the place, and it is not left to us, to decide innocence or guilt; so let's all just try to forget it and go to sleep!"
Rokay grudgingly rolled himself in his blanket. The others were uneasy: Nuzhunpa was right, of course, as usual; but Rokay had made a point, too. Kunahr told herself that she would have probably done the same as Monwyrt in the same situation. Anyogatoh didn't think anything could justify setting that wildfire.
Monwyrt was disappointed.
He had heard about Opumohn only in passing bits of conversation between Zholybet and her prahnum. He hadn't realized that Opumohn had died because of the fire, but Rokay's contention that he was directly, even intentionally, responsible struck him as very intolerant and prejudicial. He had been treated with equanimity, even compassion, by Nuzhunpa and Zholybet, and he had been prepared to forget the lifetime of jokes, epithets, and slurs made by the Traeppedelferes derogating the Mocwalwians, and replace it with the more favorable impression wrought by them. But in a flash Rokay had torn down any hopes Monwyrt had constructed that the age-old prejudices were unfounded.
He had a hard time getting to sleep. His long inactivity, his afternoon nap, and his first solid food in a hand-day all conspired with Rokay's accusation to keep him wide awake. The ribs of the vaisoh seemed to actively attack him, the sounds of the gentle rustling of the shoam and the incessant clicking of the orvays swelled to a maddening volume. The vaisohs occasionally bumped together, sending a tremor of contact, grossly magnified by his insomnia, running through the craft and directly into his back. He shifted his weight every few moments, until Zholybet finally had to ask him to stop shaking the vaisoh. He sat up with a jerk, causing the craft to lurch into the next vaisoh with a thud, at a sudden noise on shore.
"What was that?" he hissed in a whisper. The shoam had rattled loudly as something had rushed through it. He had heard that noise before out on the plain at night, but had never seen what made it.
"Monwyrt, please!" begged Zholybet, becoming exasperated at his constant interruption of her sleep. No sooner had she managed to doze off, she thought to herself, than he turned over, or sat up, or cleared his throat, or did something else to wake her up again. Now he was up in arms over the stalks rattling! "Wild vashlymoss!" she said impatiently, as if that explained everything. "Go to sleep!"
Monwyrt tried to relax. He listened to Nuzhunpa's measured breathing (the um had been sleeping soundly for some time), and soon he heard Zholybet's light whistling. "Wild vashlymoss!?" he muttered to himself under his breath, but he did not hear that sound again that night.
In the morning, the last remnants of a heavy fog hovered over the Luhvluhv as the sun steadily burned it away from above. The vaisohs, all five of them, had piled up together in the night, impeded by a great sand-bar jutting out at a slight bend in the river. Upon further inspection the sand-bar proved to extend almost all the way across, although there was a channel near the far bank which was more than wide enough for the narrow barges and had been scoured out to a surprising depth.
"The storm-waters have moved the river-bottom since we came upriver," Rokay called back from the lead vaisoh. They were still all strung together from the night.
The rest of the party was finishing up a cold breakfast, or stowing away night-wraps, or shaking still-sleeping members of their vaisohs awake, or trying to awaken themselves. Faaloh got a big laugh by pretending to lose his balance, wailing loudly and flailing his arms elaborately, eventually falling backwards into the river, and by doing so creating a huge spray which drenched an oversleeping Groanyard in the adjacent vaisoh.
"Aaah!" she shrieked, shaking the water from her face. "Faaloh, you krot! What did you do that for? Shyay!"
Faaloh affected a hurt expression. "It was an accident!" he protested, to howls of laughter from the witnesses. "Really! I fell off the vaisoh!"
"Kokuy!" Groanyard bellowed at her um, to everyone's delight but his. "What are you going to do about this?" She stood upright in their vaisoh, dripping and furious.
Kokuy meekly turned to Faaloh. His expression plainly said for anyone to read, "Why are you doing this to me so early in the morning?" and he obediently, if half-heartedly, went through the motions of defending his numpa.
"Faaloh, what are you up to?" he whined.
"Up to?" Faaloh shook water from his hands, as if to say, "What are you talking about? Look how wet I got, and you ask me what I'm `up to!"
Kokuy sighed. "Don't do it again, please?"
"It was an accident," Faaloh repeated, as he began to climb back into his vaisoh. Unfortunately, his first attempt was not successful, and he fell back into the river with another huge splash. This time Kokuy was soaked, and the whole party roared. No one enjoyed it more or laughed louder than poor Kokuy's numpa, Groanyard. Kokuy did not look forward to the rest of this day.
Nuzhunpa heard these antics, of course, but he was thinking about other things. He turned to Zholybet and said, "Zholy, do you think you can handle the vaisoh by yourself today?" He knew she could do so easily.
"Dacoar, prahnum; but why?"
He looked downriver. "The sand has shifted. I think I will go in the lead vaisoh for a time."
"Oh," she said, not exactly understanding why that concerned him, but seeing no reason to argue. "All right."
Monwyrt felt the vaisoh bob suddenly, and looked up with alarm as Nuzhunpa dove into the water. Keenly remembering his own adventure of the day before, he felt the hot touch of panic as he saw Nuzunpa disappear underwater. But the panic was immediately replaced by wonder when the old um resurfaced and smoothly and swiftly swam with the current, downstream to the lead vaisoh.
"Is that what you were talking about?" he asked Zholybet excitedly, pointing after Nuzhunpa.
"What?" she said, turning her head to look. "What, swimming, you mean?"
"Dacoar, swimming. Can you really teach me to do that?"
"I can try," she offered. "I don't know if you can do it, though. Zhonoys can't swim, I thought."
Monwyrt took this as a challenge. "We have no reason to learn to swim in the mines."
Zholybet shuddered with a sudden chill. The mines.
The very thought of living underground fanned a sense of dread in her, and she looked at Monwyrt curiously. Last night he had spoken rather mysteriously about a feeling of freedom he had running across the burned plain, and she wondered now if that feeling had come as a reaction against the closeness of a life in holes in the mountains. There were times when she could almost forget that Monwyrt was a Zhonoy. But then, at the mere mention of a word, he became as distant and foreign as anything could possibly be. Not threatening, though, she smiled to think. Just different.
The thin mist vanished as the sun rose, and soon the word was passed back from Nuzhunpa to detach the vaisohs and begin the day's journey. Monwyrt noted with satisfaction that he could move about the barge without any signs of queasiness. He was not good at it, to be sure; and he did not dare yet to try to stand as the Mocwalwians did, but he could manage to get from one end of the long vaisoh to the other on hands and feet without upsetting anything. He smiled contentedly, trying to divine the secrets of navigation as he watched Zholybet handle the pairsh up in the bow of the boat. As she performed the task it appeared to be simplicity itself: leaning to the side here, a slight thrust of the pairsh there, a sudden subtle shifting of her weight to slip by a hidden flooded shoal.
He looked up at the wide sky. There were, of course, no mountains anywhere in sight, and he wondered whether Zholybet had ever seen any mountains. Then he chuckled to himself. Such a question! He himself, only a season ago, had not even known that the mountains had an end. How things change!
He stared with thoughtful appreciation at the back of the Mocwalwian antunge standing at the far front end of the vaisoh. She was not at all like what he had imagined a Mocwalwian to be, from all he had heard of them. She was actually, he considered carefully, not unattractive, in a different sort of way. She was like... he tried to compare her to antunges he had seen during his time as a morwegiestranweard.
He smiled at the remembrance. He realized that it had been a long time since he had seen any antunge at all, and his blood quickened, and his scalp tingled. He watched Zholybet's broad shoulders ripple as she almost casually changed the course of the heavy vaisoh; he saw her calves and thighs flex, tilting the craft to scud by some hidden stone; he stared at her hands deftly maneuvering the long pairsh... He squirmed with an impulse which, under the circumstances, made him very uncomfortable.
Zholybet whirled around in alarm when she heard the splash, but she smiled when she saw that Monwyrt had held on to the gunwale when he went over.
"Why did you do that?" she asked, rather surprised that he would want to go into the river at all after his scare the day before.
"I, er, was getting too, er, warm," he fumbled.
"Well, get back in the vaisoh," she commanded. "You're slowing us down."
"I'll get in in a moment. I want to cool off, first."
Another Zhonoy difference, she thought. It did not seem warm to her at all that morning. "Come on!" she urged. "Get back in! I don't want to have to keep watching you for fear of you letting go and drowning. Get in! Here, let me help." She began to walk to the stern of the vaisoh.
"Fo!" Monwyrt blurted. "I mean, er, I can get in myself. You just watch for sand bars. I'll manage!"
Zholybet, reminded of her duty, had a sudden premonition of some huge bank looming in front of the vaisoh, and she turned around to see, but of course there was nothing there. Monwyrt saw her turn her back and began to climb back into the boat. But it was not as easy as he had expected it to be, and he didn't manage to be as discreet as he had hoped. In fact, he made quite a ruckus and, when Zholybet looked back again to see what his problem was, he was in a very awkward, and what was worse, revealing position, with one arm and one leg draped over the gunwale and the rest of him hanging over the side. Zholybet closed her eyes hurriedly, but it was too late. She suddenly felt the warmth Monwyrt had complained of. Bashfully, but unable to resist, she opened her eyes again.
"Are you sure you don't need help getting out?" she called.
Monwyrt dropped back into the water instantly. "Are you looking?" he squeaked, dropping all pretenses.
"I, er, I, er - Dacoar," she admitted.
Monwyrt was confused, dazed. If she had been a Traeppedelfere, he would have thought nothing of the situation he found himself in now. The exhibition of arousal, by one means or another, was a common occurance amongst his race, and led naturally to becumanfisc or rejection with no embarrasment or animosity involved either way. Why, then, he asked himself, was he feeling so absolutely humiliated now? The whole thing had come up so unanticipatedly, almost without his even being aware of it. It was unintentional, an accident! The more he thought about it, though, the more embarassing it became, until he just wanted to let go and disappear under the Luhvluhv.
Zholybet was suffering a strain on her emotions, too. She knew she should be disgusted. This was just another revolting thing about the Zhonoys, she argued to herself; their uncontrollable lust and immoderate sensuality. The rumors of it had almost sickened her in the past. But somehow, what she felt was not nausea, it was something quite different. She was not sure she could identify what it was, exactly, that she was feeling; it was a new sensation to her. To be the object of a Zhonoy's desire - oh! it sounded like a nightmare put that way, but it felt... it felt good, in a weird sort of way. Perhaps it's just being the object of someone's desire (at last!), she argued again: that's what feels good. But that someone is a Zhonoy! It's a good thing her prahnum was not there! She struggled alternately, violently, between her duty to be repelled, and her desire to be desired.
She walked to the stern of the vaisoh. "Here," she said, extending her hand to help him up, "you might as well get in, now."
Monwyrt looked up, blushing. She gave a little gasp (or was it just his imagination?) as he threw his leg over the side and she rolled him into the vaisoh. She stood there over him a moment in anxious silence, neither of them daring to meet the other's eye, which unfortunately left their eyes free to roam.
"There was no mistake," Zholybet confirmed to herself, when she finally returned, glowing with an unwanted thrill, to her pairsh at the bow. "He thinks I'm pretty!"
"I wanted to talk to you about the Zhonoy," Nuzhunpa told Rokay. The mid-day sun bore down on them, and the lead vaisoh had advanced out of earshot of the others.
"I had hoped that was the reason you swam up," Rokay said with a smile. "Otherwise, your being here meant that you didn't think I could handle the riverbed changes."
"You know that's not true: there isn't a single numpa or um with us who I couldn't trust to work a pairsh, and you're the best riverum of us all." Nuzhunpa may have exaggerated, but if so, only slightly. No one had contested the selection of Rokay as lead riverum.
"Second best, perhaps," Rokay said humbly, implying his respect for Nuzhunpa's skill. "And if you include numpas, third best, after your Zholybet."
Nuzhunpa looked at him narrowly. He was old enough to recognize Rokay's uncharacteristic praise of Zholybet for what it was; not that she was undeserving of it. But he was well, perhaps painfully, aware of the prevailing opinion of his daughter amongst the ums. Rokay was serving the doab-krot.
"Dacoar, perhaps," he agreed, to Rokay's slight irritation. Then he came to the point. "Why were you so hard on the Zhonoy last night?"
Rokay had expected this. "You don't think it deserves it, do you, Nuzhunpa?"
"I didn't say that," said Nuzhunpa.
"You don't have to," returned Rokay. "And I'm not saying that you're not right. But it seems to me that we are in a dangerous situation here."
"What do you mean?"
"Has a Zhonoy ever been taken to Todymody? Fo. Not ever. Are you sure that Paisohnprahn will be pleased?"
"Pleased? Fo, I am not sure of that. But I am sure that he will be interested in this Zhonoy."
"Why? Has Paisohnprahn asked about this Zhonoy, or wanted to talk to any Zhonoy?"
"Monwyrt does not seem to be just any Zhonoy. There are things about him that -"
"What kind of things?" Rokay interrupted. "It is a Zhonoy, Nuzhunpa, a Zhonoy. We've had to deal with them every season, and you more than most of us; we all know what they're like! When they aren't cheating us at the trockzelay, they're cheating us at the marshmancay, or pulling some sort of horrible trick like that one slow does every season, or howling and raving at whatever their vile games are across the river. And now we are to have no safe place from them: you are bringing them home with us!"
"You forget that this one did not come with the rest; that in itself is significant. The Zhonoys do not like to be alone long, but Monwyrt apparently had not seen his tribe for several hand-days, at least."
"So do him a favor, and give him back to his tribe."
"You also seem to take for granted that he speaks our tongue. Doesn't that strike you as unusual? And if he had never been to the Ealdlazay Fair, how could he know it?"
"That simply proves that it is a liar!" returned Rokay. "I can't believe that for a moment. It had no idea it was near our camp, it says, but it was certainly convenient for it that it was! And all that time it supposedly was unconscious - what if it lied about that, too?"
"Why would he do that?" Nuzhunpa demanded.
"I don't know!" Rokay exploded. "Why does it want to go to Todymody? Why was it running alone out on the plain? I'm just saying that I don't trust it, Nuzhunpa. There are too many questions. If it was Laizuvrian, all those questions would make me wonder, but a Zhonoy? I would have left it out in the shoz."
"If Monwyrt has any sinister plans, he has been ingenious in concealing them," said Nuzhunpa. "Paisohnprahn will guide us when the time comes. In the meantime, if you can't trust him, be on your guard, but do not threaten him. He does not threaten me."
"Perhaps it doesn't threaten you," Rokay said with a wry smile, which he hid from the old um, "but does it threaten Zholybet? You seem to trust it a great deal."
Moments ago Zholybet had run the sharbohn vaisoh securely up onto a sand bar, and now was supporting a cooperative Monwyrt in the water with her arms.
"Fo! keep your head down!" she repeated. "Dacoar, there. Now, this arm," she grasped his arm by the wrist and brought it up out of the water over his head, "does this, and that arm," she reached across him to move his other arm through the water, "does this. Fo, like this, here, I'll do it, stand up and watch."
He dutifully stood and watched while she demonstrated the technique again. He had found it increasingly harder and harder to concentrate on what she was saying as the lesson went on; it was as if he had no control over himself. He kept reminding himself that she was a Mocwalwian ("a Mocwalwian, Monwyrt!" he spat out in his mind), but it was to no avail. His hair began to curl as she swam back to him, and he heard her as if through a great distance as she began again to hold his limbs in the water in the proper positions for swimming. But he did not want to swim. His whole being was impossibly lunging toward something else.
Zholybet had never taught anyone to swim before (Laizuvrians learned it in their shainus, of course), but she soon realized that Monwyrt was extraordinarily inept as a pupil. Whether it was because he was physically incapable of it, or for some other reason, she couldn't tell. It didn't matter to her, anyway.
She was intoxicated by the touch of Monwyrt's body in the cool water. She could hear herself continuing the lesson, but it was as though she was listening, and not very attentively at that, to someone else doing the talking. Was it the hot sun? Was it the river gently flowing around her? Was she light-headed from hunger, or perhaps thirst? She tried in vain to catch hold of some other explanation, but she knew she wouldn't; there was no other explanation. In a dream, she realized she had stopped talking.
Monwyrt didn't notice that she had stopped. He hadn't been listening, anyway. He wasn't aware of anything except that he and Zholybet had been looking intently into each other's eyes for some time without saying a word. He put his hand softly on her side, then around her back, and he felt her drawing him close to her at the same time, and they embraced in a wet, slippery, warm, smothering crush. Her toes and the small of her back curled; his knees lost their resolve, and the cool river wrapped them in its waist-high massage.
They stood there in each other's arms, afraid to break the spell, forbidden to proceed, and unwilling to go back, for what seemed like seasons, and at the same time only a fleeting moment - not knowing what to do, or what had happened, or how, or why. But for all that ignorance, the one thing that they did know was that, just then, temporary as it may prove to be, they were supremely happy.
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